The design process in recent projects by Pei Zhu, of Studio Pei-Zhu (Beijing) has been inspired by the vocabulary of nature and natural forms but has resulted in an architecture that is divergent from nature and sometimes unnatural. Uninterested in a “formal equivalence” to natural vocabularies, Studio Pei-Zhu instead seeks a “dynamic equivalence” when working nature into an architectural concept. Different environments create different humanistic interpretations of landscape and space; Studio Pei-Zhu uses nature and environment to peel back the subjective influences of society—its politics, cultures, and religion—in an attempt to revert to basic human experiences. This allows Zhu to explore the fundamentals of how nature, as distinct from human intervention, influences architecture.
